“Until you quit.”
“Yes.” Her eyes were drier, calmer now as they traveled over my face. “I took your job offer because I wanted to be near you. I’m not even going to lie about it at this point. But since I’ve started, I’ve felt just… better about myself. Like I’m allowed to enjoy the things I used to feel guilty about, and like I’m the one in control now.”
She pulled me closer by my shirt till I lowered my weight onto her. I felt the heavy chains around my chest lift the second she smiled.
“You make me feel… happy,” she murmured. She paused. “Like I’ve never felt before in my life,” she exhaled. But then she swallowed hastily, looking apologetic. “And I know that’s a lot for you to hear right now, so you don’t have to say anything. Just nod or say one word to acknowledge you heard it, and we’ll move on. Just say ‘okay.’”
“How about ‘same’?” I asked as she blinked with confusion at me. “I feel the same.”
I watched that little smile on her mouth break into a grin.
“But I want to make sure you stay happy,” I whispered, kissing her curved lips. “I’m not going to let anyone hurt you again. I promise you that. Okay?”
She breathed out slow, steady now, and closed her eyes.
“Okay.”
24
SARA
So he does sleep.
I lay on my side for a minute after waking up. The exhaustion from last night had hit me fast and hard, and I remembered falling asleep with Julian in bed with me. For the first hour I drifted in and out, I knew he was awake, because he would murmur something to me or brush his hand through my hair. In my half-conscious fog, I remembered being convinced the man didn’t sleep.
That’s how you go from normal hardworking guy to billionaire. Zero hours of sleep a night.
I recalled stirring at three in the morning and being alone in bed. At six o’clock, it was the same thing.
So waking up at eight-thirty next to Julian in nothing but a pair of sweatpants was a bit of a shock. It was like spotting a shooting star. That lean six-pack aside, it was striking to see him simply resting for once, and just being human. There was the slightest, slightest natural smile on his smooth, pink lips, and it made me laugh to myself to think that Julian Hoult actually smiled more in his sleep than in his day-to-day life.
To avoid staring at him forever like a crazy person, I eventually dragged myself out of bed. I set my feet carefully on the hardwood, expecting to feel a bit of a lag or a haze, or some sort of emotional hangover from last night.
But I felt nothing.
I just felt… good.
Despite going to bed with a smile on my lips, I didn’t expect to wake up happy. Confessing everything to Julian last night had been a roller coaster. At some points, I felt dread and fear for what he was learning about me. At others, I felt almost the same exhilaration I felt when I was on the bike with him.
I felt open. And free.
Light on my feet, in his white T-shirt and my blue panties, I wandered the beautiful house I hadn’t had the chance to soak in last night. It was actually too big for me to explore every room of, and I had little interest anyway after finding the floor-to-ceiling wall of books in the living room.
There had to be a thousand of them. Maybe more. The shelves stretched even around the corners of the wall, with a polished wooden ladder attached. My hungry eyes scanned over the spines of probably a hundred books before landing upon one that made me smile, because it was the only one with bookmarks sticking out of its pages.
The French Language: Idioms and Phrases.
I couldn’t help grabbing it. It was the morning’s second piece of adorable evidence that Julian Hoult was in fact human. He didn’t know how to speak French, and he wanted to learn. Simple as that.
I imagined it was for the purpose of business, considering the resort in Biarritz, which was of course on the French side of Basque Country. So plucking it from the shelf, I headed for the porch outside, toward the vintage porch swing that had been calling my name since I spotted it out the window. Padding over in my bare feet, I sunk back into the luxurious pillows, a little grin on my lips. The trip to Biarritz was the day after tomorrow.
But within the first few bookmarks I peeked at, I realized Julian had not purchased this book for the purpose of work.
My eyes unblinking, I flipped through, mentally collecting all the phrases he had saved to learn.
I miss you.
I think about you.